Nvidia and Dish Community, a satellite tv for pc TV firm, are in a authorized tussle over the usage of the phrase ‘Hopper’. On the one facet, you could have Nvidia, who needs to make use of the identify for an upcoming GPU technology, and on the opposite there’s Dish Community with its personal line of Hopper satellite tv for pc receivers.
Nvidia names all its GPU generations after well-known scientists. For instance, Pascal is known as after French mathematician Blaise Pascal, and Ampere for fellow Frenchman André-Marie Ampère. To proceed that development, Nvidia is clearly seeking to identify its upcoming GPU technology after Grace Hopper, the US Navy Rear Admiral and famed laptop scientist credited with pioneering work on programming languages.
Enjoyable truth, she additionally found the first computer bug. Like, an precise bug: a moth caught in a relay which was inflicting errors in her system.
Dish Community provides a line of merchandise nicknamed Hopper for his or her kangaroo-inspired branding, such because the Hopper 3, Hopper with Sling, and Hopper Duo. There’s additionally a co-line of merchandise nicknamed Joey.
Essentially totally different namesakes then, however which may not depend for a lot on the earth of trademark disputes.
The thrust of the problem, as famous by our sister web site Tom’s {Hardware} in its report, is that Dish Community holds a patent, registered on June 5, 2012, for the characters “Hopper” in no specific font, fashion, measurement, or color. The trademark is particularly for merchandise associated to digital receivers and audio units. It additionally holds comparable logos for the phrase Hopper alongside a tiny kangaroo, and Hopper Duo, and Hoppergo.
Dish Community believes there may very well be some confusion on the shopper’s behalf if Nvidia had been to proceed with its naming of its next-gen GPUs Hopper, and that clients might even mistake each merchandise—GPU and satellite tv for pc receiver—to originate from the identical firm. Goodness gracious.
Nvidia first filed the Nvidia Hopper patent way back in 2019, although in 2020 it was returned to Nvidia by a trademark analyzing lawyer with a number of points, together with the probability of confusion with present Hopper logos.
The dispute then continued for the whole thing of 2021, with a number of motions to suspend the proceedings granted, presumably as the businesses attempt to come to some type of settlement.
That grace interval, with none additional extensions, will finish on February 22, 2022. If no additional motion is taken, the case will reopen. Although it is doubtless one other extension or settlement will come earlier than then. In some unspecified time in the future, Nvidia will wish to truly launch the up to now unannounced Hopper lineup of merchandise, and it will have to clear issues up with Dish Community earlier than then.
